Middlesbrough’s Michael Carrick confident players understand Sunderland fixture meaning

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Middlesbrough Head Coach Michael Carrick has made clear his belief that his players are well aware of the meaning of their upcoming fixture against Sunderland. Daniel Wales reports.

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00:00Middlesbrough have been one of the most active clubs in the transfer window in terms of incomings,

00:06with Morgan Whittaker of Plymouth being the standout signing of a busy month on Teesside.

00:11With local rival Sunderland making the short trip up the A19 on Monday, it could well be

00:16a game for new stars to shine.

00:19Borough would also appear to be on the verge of losing top goalscorer Emmanuel Latte-Lath

00:24to American side Atlanta United, but with Whittaker coming in the goals will by no means

00:29completely dry up. Losing a player like Latte-Lath will undoubtedly be a blow, but the intent

00:34is still there, at the club, to be in the play-offs.

00:40Michael Carrick outlined that as a group, his players are still pushing and are not

00:43satisfied with their current position in the championship.

00:47Yeah, I think this shows we're pushing and we want to keep improving. I think we're never

00:53really satisfied, we're certainly not satisfied quite at the moment where we are and we want

00:58to keep pushing, but yeah, I'd take that for that. I think the boys within the group, they're

01:06hungry for more, they're pushing each other and they get frustrated or a little bit disappointed

01:09at times and that's a good sign because we expect more from each other and we know it's

01:15in us to do that, so I'd certainly see that of eyes up really and looking ahead of us

01:22to see how we can get better. Sometimes that's working on the pitch training, sometimes that's

01:27game-to-game, sometimes that's trying to sell windows and trying to improve the group and

01:31trying to improve the squad.

01:33The visit of Sunderland presents more than just another fixture in the championship,

01:38with Carrick being in no doubt that his players understood the meaning of the game.

01:43I think, I know for sure the boys get it, the boys get it, they know what these games

01:49mean for us within the football club, certainly for the supporters and what it means to them

01:55and how it affects their everyday lives in the weeks and the days leading up to the game

02:00and certainly after the game, so we're well aware of that, the boys are well aware of

02:05that and that's what adds to these types of games and makes them special.

02:08Last time out against Preston was not Borough's best defensive display, something which Carrick

02:12was well aware of and has analysed with the aim of improvement.

02:16It's the flow of how the goal came about maybe, what led up to it, what can we do better as

02:21a team, in terms of defensively, in terms of numbers of shots and things we're giving away,

02:29we're near the top of the league in terms of number of shots, I think it's a little bit on

02:33that conversion rate for the opposition is too high for us really and that's something we spoke

02:40about and we need to do something about, but in terms of giving a lot away, we're not giving a

02:45lot away, I think we're about fourth in terms of shots against, so from a coaching point of view,

02:50we take that as a positive, but we've got to put that into the reality of results and goals.

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